Fire Chief's Newsletter
14 March 2010
"What's in it for me?"
What's in it for me? This is a question that gets asked many times over for all types of reasons. But for us here it has to do with being a volunteer with the Brinnon Fire Department.
There was a time in the not to distant past that volunteer fire departments had a waiting list to be a member. Some places the wait was over a year long. But as our society grew and expanded people no longer worked in the same town that they lived in. This changed the face of the fire service, no longer could you depend on the local workers and business to let employees go to answer a call for help. There was still the desire to volunteer in your community so people were home they responded to calls for help and got together maybe once a month and it was more of a social outing to catch up and see what new tools the fire department had.
Then a change started to take place, the requirements placed on those same volunteers became more and more. It was no longer just enough to get together every so often, no now there had to be a certain number of training hours per month and you had to document those hours. The waiting lists dwindled because people no longer had the extra time to donate to the fire department. Eventually the number of volunteers dwindled to the point that you did not know if any one was going to respond if you called for help. So some departments combined with others in order to provide service. This did not always work and some places found that they could only provide emergency service with full time paid people.
For us here at the Brinnon Fire Department well we have taken a different approach. Yes, I am a full time paid employee and yes we will be hiring more. But, I refuse to forget those people who got us to this point, our volunteers. Since 1959 the Brinnon Community has had it's own fire department and over the last 50 years those volunteers worked with out any compensation, except a thank you from a very grateful community member whom they helped in an emergency. Well now we are trying to accomplish several things with our new volunteer programs.
The first program is called the Volunteer Points program. This program reimburses Volunteers for incidental costs associated with being a Volunteer. Things like fuel costs while responding to a 911 call, laundry costs for their clothes after a call. This new version of our program provides an incentive for volunteers to participate more, rather then everyone being measured with the same stick. This forum is too short to go into detail but if you would like to know more just stop by the fire station and see me.
The second program is called the Volunteer Stipend Program. This program is for those volunteers who want to find out if a career in the fire service is for them or not. Our program has some very tight requirements in order to participate and is only open to our volunteers. But in exchange for a 12 hour shift our volunteers receive a stipend. During their shift the volunteers perform duties around the station as well as respond to calls. There is also a significant amount of training that takes place. All of this serves 4 main purposes, first is to increase the readiness of our volunteers to respond to your emergency, Second it provides someone on duty at Fire Headquarters 12 hours a day 7 days a week, Third it gives the volunteers an opportunity to see what a career in the fire service would be like with out them have to make a major commitment. Fourth this new program provides a potential employment source for the young people in our community.
So when you ask What's in it for me? A chance to learn a new skill, a chance to serve you community and a chance to obtain a job in the community that provides a service that may not get you rich but will certainly make you feel like you made a difference in some ones life each day. After all isn't that what service is about?
FIREMATICALLY
ROBERT E. HERBST JR.
FIRE CHIEF, BRINNON FIRE DEPARTMENT